Respect of ambush: Anushka Shetty’s return fails to rise above the film basic trops
Goti Movie Review: Director Krishnalumadi’s ‘Gati’, which has an average story on Anushka Shetty, Vikram Prabhu and others, exploitation and oppression. The film depends on the familiar trops with very little to watch further.
Long before Nayantara, now called Lady Superstar, it was Anushka Shetty who earned the title for the first time. She made headlines to female-linked films and created a market for such stories. However, after ‘Bahubali’, Anushka Shetty is struggling with her film options. As the final credits suggest, Rani – Anushka Shetty is back with another offering with ‘Gati’. But has the direction of Krishna Jagalamudi gave him a very important return gift?
Sheelavati (Anushka Shetty) is a bus conductor in Korput, while her childhood girlfriend Desi Raju (Vikram Prabhu) works as a laboratory technician. Couples live a simple life, but their past is not as simple as they see. Meanwhile, two canbis business tycoon, Kundala Naidu (Chaitanya Rao) and Castala Naidu (Ravindra Vijay), discover a new form of liquid-based cannabis and determined to secure it.
This leads them to the ghats, which live in the ghats, which work as local porters, which help in smuggling cannabis in the mountains. The past of Sheilavati and Desi Raju is associated with Kundla and Castala’s dreams. It determines the stage for a face-off, exploitation, harassment and revenge story.
Director Krishnalumudi’s ‘ambush’ just discussed a lot due to her cooperation with Anushka Shetty. After several delays, ‘ambush’ finally hit theaters today, only to add a long list of films that show potential, but are very basic. This is ‘ambush’. It does not try to be more. It does not try to reduce.
The ghats do not function as only a landscape, they become a character in ‘ambush’, where cannabis is. Men, women and children generations canbis, bring the porter to their masters and are exploited for some hundreds and thousands of people. Any story of harassment has a conversion master who does not give any chance to showcase his superiority. He and his gang kill people, abuse women and buy everything with money.
The ‘ambush’ reflects all these more. However, there is no element of high that promises to offer the film. This is because the film is rarely beyond basic trops. For example, if we have a villain with money, there should also be a hero who revolts against them. In this case, it is Anushka Shetty’s Sheela that takes to Castala and Kundla. Anushka’s character is interesting from far away. She starts her journey as a worker, becomes a criminal and arises as a leader.
We also have Jagpati Babu and John Vijay as police officers, who add more to information/dialogue. Everything is told in the film and then shown, which makes it repetitive. And when Anushka rises as a leader, it is just tapping in Baleya mode. There is nothing wrong in this, but someone should assure it. Here, Taki VFX, hardly lets you take him seriously, even when he is killing the throat, the men die as if not tomorrow.
The ‘ambush’ promises when it shows the leads – Anushka and Vikram Prabhu – being the support system of each other and how they develop over the years. But, this potential is short -lived, as the story returns to general ideas and predicted quarrels to show Sheela’s rebellion.
Display, Anushka Shetty’s piercing eyes mostly talk. However, in many sequences, his expressions appear to be a sophistication. Vikram Prabhu makes a mark in a limited role. Ravindra Ajay and Chaitanya Rao, as a fiery tycoon, hold the screen with their appearance. Manoja Reddy Katasani’s cinematography shows us the ghats in full form, but does not do music justice by Nagveli Vidya Sagar.
‘Ghaha’ had all the materials for a compelling return vehicle for Anushka Shetty, but she settled in her post-‘Bahbali’ filmography to have only one more forgotable entry.